Brian Piccolo, Manager, Digital Strategic Services at Liberty Mutual, will be a featured speaker at the Engagement & Experience Expo, which will be held Nov. 5-7, 2013 at the Westin Galleria in Dallas, Texas. Dicso participated in a Q&A with Loyalty 360 and offered insights connected to his featured session titled, “How to Use Smarter Video to Deliver a Differentiated Welcome Experience.”
Liberty Mutual, the third largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S., has undertaken a strategic initiative to improve the new policyholder experience and bridge the gap between quote approval, initial payment, and the arrival of the physical welcome packet. Personalized video experiences enhance new customer engagement by proactively explaining the policy, billing details, and promoting value-added services.
Q: Why did Liberty Mutual get involved in personalized video?
Purchasing auto insurance is a complicated and difficult transaction. And there are a lot of customers that complete the purchase and still don’t have a clear understanding of their policy details. SundaySky’s SmartVideo provides a great platform for helping to answer some of these questions immediately following the purchase transaction in an easy to consume medium that is engaging and reinforces Liberty’s brand promise to its policyholders. We are tracking a few key metrics throughout the initial use case of the SundaySky platform and are expecting to see the opportunity to deflect calls from our call centers as well as reduce churn with our policyholders over the first year.
Q: With the advent of social, mobile and other emerging technologies, how do brands effectively improve the customer experience and engage their audience in this challenging and very dynamic marketing environment?
Whether a customer wants to talk to a local agent, speak to someone in our call centers, or transact online via desktop or mobile, we are focused on providing them with a seamless experience regardless of the channel. And many of our strategic projects as well as our innovation efforts are focused on optimizing our multi-channel distribution to provide the best customer experience in the industry.
Q: What are the challenges you see with multichannel communication for today’s marketers and how do we best address this opportunity for increased engagement?
Insurance is, by its nature, a low engagement product. Not only is purchasing auto insurance a complex transaction but it’s also an infrequent transaction that most people only have to think about a couple times a year at most. As an insurance company, you have limited opportunities throughout the customer journey to really communicate and engage with your customers so it’s important that every touch point is a positive one. SmartVideo really enables companies to provide that great experience not only at the time of purchase but throughout the consumer lifecycle.
Q: What new/trending technology do you believe has the best ability to evoke the senses to shape and steer meaningful and desired experiences for products and brands?
I think that all types of video, both traditional and “smart”, will be driving consumer engagement for a long time to come. And with the explosive adoption of smartphones I also agree that mobile apps will continue to evolve and provide a platform that will allow marketers and brands to deliver truly personalized, contextual experiences to consumers.
Q: Loyalty 360 believes that loyalty is the most important facet to consider in any marketing strategy. How can one create loyalty when so many technologies are focused on mass acquisition of customers, which may or not be aligned effectively with the product offering?
Liberty Mutual is in the business of providing our customers peace of mind by protecting what they value most. Beyond the purchase of their policy, most customers only engage with Liberty when they have to file a claim because they lost something of value. When we were deciding on the initial use case for personalized video, customer acquisition was third or fourth on the list behind onboarding and retention focused messages. Engaging the customer post-purchase establishes trust and reassures the policyholder that Liberty Mutual will be there for them when they need them most!
Q: What will be the biggest opportunity for marketers in the next 3-5 years?
I think that marketers are going to be able to deliver on the old adage of providing the right message to the right person at the right time like never before as big data and mobile technologies continue to merge and evolve.
Q: Six qualities define engagement – value, efficiency, trust, consistency, relevance and control. Which term do you think the market finds the easiest to implement and what term does it find the most difficult?
For the insurance industry, I believe that efficiency is the easiest quality. Insurance companies spend millions of dollars every year to continuously improve their operations from an efficiency standpoint. Trust is the most difficult for insurance agencies. Most customers don’t like insurance and only view it as a necessary evil so it’s crucial to try to build that relationship and engage the consumer at every touch point.
Q: What will be the biggest challenge for marketing in the next 3-5 years?
Privacy is going to be huge, for sure, but I also think that there is going to be an opportunity for marketers to fall into the “analysis paralysis” trap if they aren’t careful.